Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Are you ready for over 3,600 hours of Sports you don't normally care about?! That's right folks, it's the Olympics and they're comin' atcha! NBC released their 66 page PDF with the schedule of events yesterday and here are some of the highlights....

Coverage of the August 8-24 Beijing games will appear on seven networks: NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Telemundo, Universal HD and, for the first time, newly acquired women's cable channel Oxygen.

All 34 sports will be covered, and 75% of the TV coverage will be live on the East Coast, even with the 12-hour difference.

NBC was able to get the Olympics organizers to schedule most of the key finals early in the morning Beijing time -- for live primetime coverage on the East Coast. The primetime coverage will include all 32 gold-medal finals for swimming, four nights of gymnastics, beach volleyball, and the men's and women's marathons.

NBC's weekday coverage will run from 10 a.m.-1 p.m. ET, as well as 8 p.m.-11:30 p.m. ET and midnight-1:30 a.m. ET.

You can't say that NBC isn't trying. Even though I think this year's Games will get terrible ratings the network isn't holding any punches in trying to get coverage to you. I mean Oxygen is involved! If you care about it the entire report is listed below, but I warn you not to click on that PDF...your computer will probably freeze (thanks to SS for that btw).

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Comments:

I don't know what it is, but it seems like the 1996 Games were the last ones that captured the attention of America. Maybe it was because the Games were in Atlanta and everything could easily be watched on television at a normal hour, but those were the last Games that I really got into and the last ones that I spent much time watching.

Those were some great games, at least to me. My all-time favorite Olympic athlete, Michael Johnson, winning the 200 and 400 and setting the world record in the 200. Carl Lewis winning his 4th gold in the long jump. Donavan Bailey setting the world record in the 100. Kerri Strug's legendary performance on her injured ankle. Kurt Angle winning a wrestling gold with a fractured neck. The U.S. kicking butt in the inaugural women's soccer competition.

Olympics have fallen off dramatically through the years. The 90's were probably the last good years for the Olympics. Now we got plenty of other sports being televised that are a lot more exciting then the Olympics.

It's the same thing for the Olympics as it is for stuff like Wimbledon, the British Open, and other shit that's going on halfway around the world. World Cup, too. If you have to wake up early, chances are people aren't going to care as much.

That sucks because I really do think watching this stuff is great television, especially for sports fans. And NBC does do an incredible job, I think, and it's nice to see when the ratings show that. I'll be watching it any chance I get, but I'm probably the exception, not the rule.

The good news is, for anyone who cares, it turns out all the swimming finals will be live. Sure, it'll be weird that those finals are taking place at Noon over there, but at least we won't have to hear about the results beforehand.

The gymnastics and beach volleyball are also some of the live stuff taking place in primetime.

And all of what NBC said in that article is true and surely a positive for all Olympic fans across the country. But beware, it turns out that NBC's Olympic plan can be too good to be true. This are the flaws that I have heard from other blogs and articles:

* Sure, NBCOlympics.com will stream 2200 hours of coverage. But none of that live coverage will be of the marquee events like gymnastics and track and field. In an AP Report from last week, the Web will still be taking a backseat to TV. * No other website or news organization (or blog including this one) is allowed to post videos of events prior to their broadcast on NBC. Actually, we can't post videos from the games at all. * NBCOlympics.com will not stream any events that are scheduled to air on TV. So for us hoping to watch the Men's 100 meter final, we'll have to wait until it airs on NBC 12 hours after the event is completed.

Boy, has track & field (oops, athletics in Olympic lexicon) ever been dumbed down by NBC. I find it odd that it spent several weekends showing live coverage of the Trials from Oregon, yet will blow off said coverage for most of the Beijing Games. That is sad. They are so enamored by swimming (get ready for a lot of Michael Phelps and Dara Torres overkill) and gymnastics (the rigged "figure skating" of the Summer Games), it's ridiculous. Track & field was always a constant in past Olympiads especially when ABC had the rights.

The worst thing about NBC's coverage is here on the West Coast, where that 75% live events number goes down to about 20%, or so it seems. The tape delays over here just kill me, would it really be that bad to air the primetime block from 5-8?

So far I have enjoyed the coverage except for the inane woman (Andrea somebody) who interviews the swimmers after their race. She asks stupid questions and obviously has no rapport with the swimmers. Coverage is great--would have been better without her!